EVMs to sport braille features

Boon for visually-challenged

Their long pending demand for an accessible Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) would be fulfilled in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections.

The State Election Commission has bought 9,000 EVMs which have some rare features that also addresses the problems faced by the visually challenged people. These problems were restricting the exercise of their franchise till now. The EVMs of Make-4, the latest version brought out by the Bharat Electonics Limited (BEL) for the Karnataka State Election Commission, has braille numbers embossed in front of the candidate’s name. “Visually challenged people had a common complaint that they are treated as second grade citizens in India beause majority of them cannot exercise their franchise though they want to be a part of the democratic process of electing the government. Keeping this in mind, the BEL manufactured these EVMs with digits in braille in front of the candidates’ names,” said a source in the State Election Commission.

Another important feature of the Make-4 EVMs is that they have print option also. “The print option is useful in case the display board fails to give the data. This will leave no room for confusion, conspiracy and conflict,” sources said. The Make-4 EVMs have the feature of connecting four EVM machines with each other to accommodate as many as 64 candidates in one machine.

The EVMs have also replaced the ribbon like wires, connecting  with the electronic machine  with a slim round cable wire, sources said.